Déjà vu All Over Again

Socialist Action & the ‘Syrian Revolution’

Most of the international left has responded to the civil war in Syria in much the same fashion
as they did to the conflict in Libya in 2011. In that case, organizations such as the International
Socialist Tendency (IST), the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI), the International
Marxist Tendency (IMT) and the British Workers Power group—to name only a few—initially
hailed the bourgeois-led uprising against Muammar Qaddafi’s dictatorship as a popular
“revolution.”Gradually they adopted more guarded formulations, and ultimately complained
that reactionaries had hijacked the ”revolution.”

In Syria, as in Libya, mass opposition to the dictatorship was rapidly hegemonized by dissident
elements of the ruling elites and Islamist reactionaries. In both cases, the imperialists played up
the atrocities (real and invented) of the government while ignoring or downplaying crimes committed
by the insurgents to whom they were providing logistical and political support. The excited
self-delusions of the various leftists who insisted on seeing these armed revolts as proto-socialist
“revolutions” served only to disorient and confuse those who took them seriously.

The Libyan uprising was initiated by the Transitional National Council (TNC), whose leaders
included individuals with longstanding connections to the CIA. The rebel fighters—largely
consisting of Islamists and members of disaffected tribes—played only a relatively minor role
in the conflict. The decisive blows against Qaddafi’s military and security apparatus were
struck by NATO bombers. This awkward fact was ignored by leftist apologists of the supposed
“revolution,” who celebrated Qaddafi’s defeat, while simultaneously criticizing
the imperialist military intervention that put the insurgents in power (see “Libya & the Left,” 1917
No.34).

Of all the tendencies that hailed the TNC-led “revolution,” only Socialist Action
(SA—the U.S. affiliate of the United Secretariat) substantially modified its position when the
pro-imperialist character of the rebels could no longer be denied. While not explicitly repudiating
its original position (and thereby avoiding the necessity of explaining how it was arrived at in the
first place), the shift was obvious in a statement published just after Tripoli fell to TNC/NATO
forces:

“Imperialism’s defeat in any confrontation with oppressed nations weakens
its capacity for future interventions and opens the door wider for others to follow suit. While
revolutionary socialists have every right and obligation to criticize and oppose dictatorships
everywhere, these criticisms are subordinate to the defeat of imperialist intervention and war.
Revolutionaries are not neutral in such confrontations. We are always for the defeat of the
imperialist intervener and would-be colonizer.”—“Imperialist Victory Is No Gain for Libyan People,” 2
September 2011

The article, by SA’s leader Jeff Mackler, stopped short of advocating military support to
Qaddafi’s fighters against the imperialists and their proxies, but it did acknowledge that
with the TNC’s ascension to power, “we are compelled to recognize the tragic truth that
a severe defeat has been inflicted on the Libyan people.”

This was more than the CWI, IST, IMT et al were capable of, but it did not represent a
repudiation of the objectivist methodology which led to interpreting an insurrection by disaffected
bourgeois elements as an unfolding revolution. While Socialist Action and its political antecedents
have a long history of “optimistic” misrepresentations that end in political
embarrassment, its leaders prefer not to account for the past but instead move on to the next big
thing. Two weeks prior to Mackler’s characterization of the Libyan TNC’s victory as a
“severe defeat” for the masses, an SA speaker in New York was proclaiming: “Long
Live the Syrian Revolution!” (“Victory to the Syrian People’s Uprising! US/NATO,
Hands Off!,” 21 August 2011).

In a subsequent statement, Socialist Action indicated that it was aware of some important
parallels between Syria and Libya:

“as in all the other Arab revolts, the U.S. is encouraging its allies in the Gulf
Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, etc.) to encourage Muslim Brotherhood and salafi
involvement in the uprising so as to have more pliable clients should Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad fall.”—”Syria uprising is critical to continuing Arab revolt,” 7
September 2011

“And fortunately, that movement in the streets is maintaining its opposition to
intervention. On Aug. 29 [2011] the Local Coordinating Committees [LCCs] in Syria posted a statement
on their Facebook page criticizing calls for foreign intervention made by more conservative elements
in the Syrian opposition after the taking of Tripoli by NATO.“—Ibid.

Under a subhead entitled, “Class forces in the Syrian revolution,” SA outlined the
unambiguously bourgeois program of the LCCs (yet failed to draw the obvious conclusion):

“Like most players in the Syrian rebellion, the LCCs have generally limited
themselves to calling for political reform, democratic elections, a revised constitution, etc. A
clearly delineated social program addressing the very inequality and exploitation that helped spark
the revolt has yet to be produced.

“But what is key is that all accounts depict the LCCs as a widespread, genuinely
grassroots phenomenon, in which thousands of youth have initiated, organized, and coordinated
protests in every major city and town in the country.”—Ibid.

This is the same impulse that earlier led SA to embrace the Libyan
“revolution”—the notion that a mass movement directed against an oppressive regime
must somehow have an innately progressive dynamic. The SA statement noted that the most prominent
leader of the LCCs was explicitly advocating a cross-class (i.e., bourgeois) bloc:

“Unfortunately, a completely different class perspective on the revolt’s
prospects is expressed by Burhan Ghalyoun, the most widely quoted leader of the opposition inside
Syria (as opposed to those living outside the country). He said in an interview reprinted in
jadaliyya.com that he believes what will be decisive for the revolt is the coming over of
‘businessmen, professionals, manufacturers, and economists’—sectors that are
seeking ‘stability’.”—Ibid.

A 26 February 2012 statement by SA’s Political Committee proclaimed: “We support the
self-organization of the Syrian masses and encourage the revolutionary elements of the mass movement
to build and strengthen organs of mass mobilization and decision-making.” Yet they could cite
no evidence of “revolutionary elements” in or around the LCCs having any impact.

In the same statement, SA’s leadership called for the creation of “self-defense
squads for the revolution” to “prevent the consolidation of the ‘Free Syrian
Army’ (FSA) as a tool of imperialism, a goal being earnestly pursued by traitorous
high-ranking officers in cahoots with the U.S. government.” No such squads
materialized, but SA nonetheless continued to support the “revolution” while
characterizing the FSA and its political affiliate, the Syrian National Council (SNC), as
“pro-imperialist.”

Like other ostensibly Marxist tendencies that portrayed the bourgeois opposition to Assad as
“revolutionary,” SA drew a distinction between the overtly pro-imperialist SNC/FSA and
the “grassroots” LCCs. Readers of Socialist Action might be surprised to learn
that not only were the LCCs affiliated to the SNC, but that, from August 2011 to June 2012, their
leading figure, Burhan Ghalyoun, was also president of the SNC. When Ghalyoun was pressured to step
down from this position, the LCCs threatened to pull out:

“The Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC), a network of activists inside and
outside Syria, warned the SNC it was drifting away from the spirit of the country’s revolution
and threatened to suspend its membership.

“‘We have seen nothing in the past months except political incompetence in
the SNC and a total lack of consensus between its vision and that of the revolutionaries,’ the
LCC said.”—Associated Press, 17 May 2012

While the LCCs initially opposed imperialist intervention, they have since reconsidered, and on 1
September 2013 released a statement advocating a large-scale U.S. military strike:

“A limited strike to merely warn Assad today will lead to nothing but his increase
in violence, as well as to his complete confidence that no one would prevent him from
killing.”

• • •

“Any strike to the regime must aim to paralyze, with care and precision, its Air
Forces, artillery, and rockets….As well as being accompanied with continued coordination and
enough support to the Syrian opposition, the political and the armed, in order to allow them to
organize and develop….”—syrianfreedomls.tumblr.com

This is precisely the attitude the Libyan TNC took toward NATO’s air war against Qaddafi.
In a statement issued two days after the LCC declaration, Socialist Action denounced the threatened
U.S. attack while not only ignoring the LCCs’ overtly pro-imperialist position, but continuing
to tout them as a potential soviet-type formation:

“Today these forces, organized largely in Local Coordinating Committees that
provide a modicum of defense and significant vital social services to Syria’s beleaguered
people, if they prove capable of sinking deep roots into the entire population, can become central
to any working-class challenge to Assad’s power, or that of any other tyrant who might
follow.”—“U.S. Hands Off Syria!,” 3 September
2013

The LCCs have not, by all accounts, lacked roots in the localities where they operate, nor can
Ghalyoun et al be accused of trying to misrepresent their program. The LCC leadership has no
particular problem with production for profit or imperialist intervention: their goal is to rid
Syria of Assad, not capitalism. There is therefore no reason to expect the LCCs to transform
themselves into an agency of genuinely revolutionary struggle. The socialist potential of the LCCs,
like the “Syrian Revolution” which they supposedly embody, is a fantasy touted by fake
Marxists who refuse to call things by their right names.